


just makes it harder to believe that she won't be around

by nosecoffee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Jughead, Asexuality, Extended Metaphors, Fluff, Grief, He could murder me and I'd say thanks, Hurt/Comfort, Jughead and Jellybean are my faves, M/M, Medium AU, Minor Character Death, Mourning, Revovery, Vague-Ass Faerie AU, Vague-Ass Magic AU, asexual character/s, car crashes, i fuckin love Jughead, murder investigation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 22:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10201973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: Rule Number One is never call him "Juggy".Rule Number Two is never touch his hat.Rule Number Three is never say her name.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Flame Trees' by Jimmy Barnes.
> 
> I can just never get tired of killing off my favourite characters. I can't let the Jones siblings live happily, can I? Fucking hell, enjoy this mess.

The first time Jughead rides a bike, he skids on the gravel of his driveway and skins up his right arm and his right leg.

He goes to hospital and they patch him up. He's hesitant to ride his bike after that.

~

Jellybean Jones dies on October the twenty-third, when the car she's driving spins out of control on the wet road and wraps itself around the tree.

Jughead Jones finds out two days later.

~

He cries with big loud sobs into his hands, sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night, the phone hung up beside him.

He breaks into the school to escape the cold, so wrapped up in grief that he doesn't try to avoid the cameras at all.

He sleeps a day straight under one of the desks at the Blue and Gold.

He tells Archie on Thursday, just before the news comes out on the Riverdale Register, that the towns beloved daughter is dead.

~

Rule Number One is never call him "Juggy".

Rule Number Two is never touch his hat.

Rule Number Three is never say her name.

~

The second time he tries out the bike, is the first time he breaks his arm. Not the only time, mind you, but that's another story.

He tries out the bike again, on the asphalt, near the bridge into Riverdale, because God forbid if his father saw him trying to ride the bike again.

Jughead thinks he has the handle of it, when he strays onto the bridge and knocks into the truss, throwing him over the edge.

He falls into the river, is knocked around a lot. Drags himself out after a bit, walks home with a broken arm that he's not sure how to explain.

~

It is two months later when Jellybean is six feet under and Jughead's begun to forget when he wakes to goosebumps raised on his skin, a chill in the air.

He sits up on the couch in the Blue and Gold's office, the one he's been sleeping on the nights Pop can't let him stay.

Jughead stares at the open window with wide eyes, inhales the smoke in silence. He rubs his eyes, and pinches himself.

He is not asleep.

She's sitting on the windowsill, a dumb hipster cigarette dangling between two fingers, her hair pulled into two messy, tangled braids under a dark blue monster beanie. The one she died in.

"Smoking will kill you," Jughead comments, throat dry, for lack of anything better to say.

Jellybean laughs, taking a drag. She doesn't look at him, "That'd be quite a feat, as I am already dead."

"So I'm imagining you?" He inquired, swinging his legs off the couch. Jellybean laughs, again.

"Oh, Juggy," he winces at the nickname, a memory of pain in his chest lashes out. "I'm cooler than anything your mind could conjure up. I'm as real as the next person."

"But you're dead." Jughead points out. She shrugs, as if he were talking about the weather.

"Yeah. Bummer, that." Jellybean says and ashes the cigarette.

"How are you here, then?" She closes the window and seats herself on one of the desks, turning on the green banker lamp.

"You know how mom used to say that this town was way more magic then it first appeared?" Jellybean asks, instead of answering.

Jughead rolls his eyes, "Yeah?"

"She was right." Jellybean's eyes sparkle in the near-dark, filled with mischief and laughter. God, he's missed that sight.

He clears his throat. "So the Blossom's? They're magic?"

"Oh yeah, the Blossom's are Faeries, for sure." She agrees.

"And the Lodges?"

"Witches."

"Archie?"

"A little bit Faerie there."

"Betty?"

"Human."

"Us?" She grins now.

"Ah, we're mediums, Juggy. We can see the dead. Or didn't you notice? You coulda had your Jason scoop long ago, if you'd been paying attention." Jellybean winks.

"Fuck." He smiles at her. "Jelly, I missed you."

She smiles back, but not the normal one. The one she used just for him, the tender one, the one that promised love and hope. "I'm gonna stick around as long as I can, okay? No more missing me, that way."

~

"So, you're a witch?" Veronica doesn't even flinch and he has to give her credit for that.

"Is that an insult or a statement?" She responds, looks up briefly from her science notes.

"The latter." Jughead shrugs.

"Oh, nice. Yeah, I am." Veronica looks him up and down before going back to her notes. "What're you?"

"Huh?" He's a little taken-aback, but he supposes he can't blame her for curiosity.

It's Veronica's turn to shrug. "No one in this town is normal, except for Betty, and I'm still on the fence about that." Jughead nods in understanding.

"Eh, I'm a medium, we tend to die young, so I guess dad's a prodigy."

"Oh, nice." She responds, absentmindedly.

"Could you do some magic for me?" Veronica grins at her paper, shakes her head minutely.

"Magic comes at a price." She informs him. "And sometimes that price is five dollars."

"'Pay your local witch for her goods and services'." Jughead jokes.

Veronica laughs softly, "And now I feel like a legitimate business woman. Way to make a girl feel special, Jug."

~

The newfound knowledge comes with its perks.

Josie and her mother, and the other two Pussycat's, yeah, they're vampires, and not the kind that sparkle, but don't turn to dust. They just aren't that fond of sunlight.

Cheryl, definitely Unseelie court. All the Blossom's are, which gives the Seelie court motive for Jason's murder. Finding the Seelie's a harder task than first anticipated, even with Veronica's help.

Archie asks them what they're doing. Jellybean shushes him. He doesn't hear her and she frowns a little.

Betty seems utterly human for the most part. Veronica says something about werewolves, speculative, but Jellybean writes it off immediately, muttering something about furry's, and 'goddamn fakes'.

Veronica shuts up about it, even if she can't hear or see Jellybean, apparently content that Betty is not a werewolf (or a goddamn furry).

~

He holds Archie's hand when they crack the case, and send Hal Cooper, a rogue Faerie, to prison for Jason's murder.

Archie flinches a little at the contact, and then relaxes.

All is well.

~

The first time he kisses Archie it feels like falling off the bike again.

It's sudden, and a little frightening with its suddenness, and then a calmness.

The eye of the storm, as such.

Chaos returns and Jughead rips himself away, spitting swears at the asphalt as he tries to remember his name.

Archie looks like his mother had when Jughead sat in the emergency room, wincing as a nurse fixed him up. Like he's not sure how to react.

"Fuck," Archie says.

"I'm sorry," Archie says.

"I won't do it again," Archie says.

Jughead kisses him again, just so that he'll shut up.

~

"Why were you driving so fast? What were you trying to get away from?" Jughead asks one night. They're sitting in the Blue and Gold office.

Jellybean purses her lips, tapping Betty's nice pen on her thigh. "Myself. It's dumb, and hipster, and cliché. I just wanted to drive."

"Why?" Jughead frowns.

"I was angry about Jason, afraid of my powers. I felt like the kid in the Sixth Sense. I felt trapped." She huffs.

He takes on a pained expression, the explanation not enough in his head for her death, for the hole she's left in his life that her ghost just can't fill, no matter how hard she tries. "Jelly..."

"I wasn't trying to kill myself." She assures him, hopping up from the desk and crossing the short space to his small excuse for a bed. "I just wanted to get away. My death was not my goal. It just happened to be a back-up plan." Jellybean bit her lip, as if the last of her confession she didn't mean to confess at all.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jughead asks, wishing he could take hold of her wrist, feel her warm at his side as she sat down beside him.

"I didn't want to worry you." Her voice is small, like it used to get when she broke something in the house and had to own up.

"Jelly, I was always worried about you. I still am." She smiles softly at him. Goes to touch him on the shoulder. He feels nothing but a cool breeze at his neck, one that ruffles the curls peeking out from under his beanie.

"Nothing bad can happen to me." Jellybean whispers. "I'm a ghost, Juggy. Nothing left to be worried about." He imagines she means it to be assuring. It makes him confused and sad.

"Why are you still here then?" He whispers back, and listens sadly to the silence that follows.

Eventually, Jellybean sighs. "Because you haven't let go yet. You're still mourning, still hurting." Her words ring true in his ears, and Jughead bites his lip at the feel of tears beginning their tracks down his cheeks. "When you've recovered enough to start forgetting about me, that's when I'll find peace. For now, I'm gonna smoke as much pot as I can and not get in trouble for it."

He laughs through his tears and wishes he could hug her.

~

Jellybean leaves a year and a half later, and Jughead can't find it in him to make up a reason for her to stay. He lets her go.

~

Archie kisses him lazily, just above the hip, on the soft part of his stomach, the little bit of him that isn't bony and lanky.

He's mouthing along it, leaving a trail of saliva behind, and Jughead can't find it in himself to pull away. The warmth of Archie next to him, sprawled over him, is comforting in a way things haven't been in a while.

Jughead's fingers are laced into Archie's mussed hair, gently holding him there, a warmth shared between them.

He doesn't mind Archie there, doing what he's doing. Thinks he actually likes it, even. He knows Archie is aware of his boundaries, knows that Archie is content where he is.

It's nothing like riding a bike.

Or, rather, it's nothing like falling off of a bike.

It's nothing like wrapping a car around a tree, either.

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed this. If you did, please feel free to leave a comment and/or kudos, and track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Some other notes: y'all don't know how much it means to me that y'all leave those long detailed comments sometimes. It means the fuckin world.
> 
> Again, thanks for reading.


End file.
